West Brother's Top 5 Sport Sedans of All Time

For as long as our blog has been around, I can't believe we've never done a Top 5 or Top 10 listing. Why not start now? Let's begin with a vehicle class near and dear to my heart: the luxury sport sedan. My brother and I have driven quite a few sport sedans over the years, and have both owned at least one in our driving careers. So what are my top five luxury sport sedans?

Let's start by first defining what I classify as a sport sedan. Of course we have the classic definition of a sedan: four doors, standard trunk. The vehicle should have some kind of upgraded engine, suspension components, and anything that makes it capable of hanging with dedicated sports cars in a similar price range. This doesn't mean I'm going to be writing a list full of cars like the M3 or the CTS-V. I classify those cars as Super Sedans; a sedan that will decimate most sports cars of equal price. Plus, I've driven less than five super sedans so far, so that wouldn't make for much of a list. What do you say we get started?


#5 - Infiniti G37S

Back when I was in college, the Infiniti G37S was THE sport sedan to have. The second generation of Infiniti's G sedan was also my first real foray into sport sedans. Having not had much experience with sport sedans at that time, I went purely off looks and power figures. Sleek and stylish looks along with its 3.7 liter VQ37 V6 making 330 horsepower made it the car that I wanted right out of college. When I finally graduated back in 2008 and entered the workforce, I made it a point to go and take a look at the car that all my college buddies raved about.

I will say that the looks, power, and performance was exactly what everyone had talked about. This thing was quick and it looked the part too. But despite its fast looks and matching performance, the interior left quite a bit to be desired. This was supposed to be an Infiniti; Nissan's luxury and performance arm. What happened to the luxury part of the equation? Sadly, 12 years and a naming scheme later, it appears Infiniti still can't really handle the luxury part of what Nissan wants it to be (you can read my first post of our long term Infiniti QX50 here to see what I mean).

#4 - Cadillac CTS V-Sport

This car isn't what some of you think it is. It is definitely not to be confused with the Corvette powered CTS-V. That thing is what I define as a super sedan, and feels like you're driving a freaking sledge hammer (in a good way). This is one (big) step down from the CTS-V. It's essentially the equivalent of BMW's M-Sport line or Lexus' F-Sport line, just with added performance instead of a bunch of lame cosmetic stuff.

I got a chance to test drive the CTS V-Sport back in 2016 during the LA Auto Show. I was lucky enough to get into the car early in the morning so I didn't have to worry about the horrors of Downtown Los Angeles traffic. Aside from being one of the absolute best looking sport sedans on the market at the time, the CTS V-Sport had the grunt to go with it. Powered by a 3.6 liter twin-turbo V6 making 420 horsepower, this thing could absolutely haul ass. Magnetic shocks meant if you needed the car to handle, it could do it, but if you needed it to be comfortable, it could do that too. And the best part? Unlike the CTS-V super sedan, which definitely tries its hardest to look the part, the CTS V-Sport was far more subtle in its looks. This was a definite sleeper. The phrase, "not your granddaddy's Caddy" definitely comes to mind.

Unfortunately, and this was an issue across Cadillac's entire lineup at the time, the interior was...not great. Yes, it basically suffered the same issue was the G37S above, but unlike Infiniti, Cadillac knew what its brand identity (or at least what it wanted to be) was. It made no qualms about being available at car rental lots across America. So despite having an interior that left much to be desired, I still have to rank this car above the Infiniti simply just because Cadillac understands where it is in the market.

#3 - Alfa Romeo Giulia 

I honestly never though I would ever get to drive anything Italian in America that wasn't a Fiat. Getting the opportunity to drive a Ferrari or Lamborghini is unlikely given I'm not a member of the automotive press, and I don't know anyone that owns one. I did get the chance to test drive the Maserati Ghibli at some point, but I was very unimpressed. Enter Alfa Romeo. Alfa's first two cars in the US market were the 8C super car and 4C sports car, both of which were basically out of my reach. In an effort to win the US market back, Alfa decided to launch itself into the compact luxury sport sedan market. Boy was it quite the interesting effort.

The Giulia, by and far, is THE best sport sedan I have driven to date. Fast, responsive 2.0 liter turbocharged four cylinder, incredible handling, and looks to die for. Even the interior, while not great, was still better than what some other luxury manufacturers were working with. So why, despite calling it the best sport sedan I've driven, is it not in the number one spot? Reliability. There's an old joke among car enthusiasts that unless you've owned an Alfa Romeo, you aren't a true enthusiast. This is because Alfa Romeos are notorious for breaking down and just having issues. It's probably one of the reasons why the company left the American market the first time. With its re-introduction to the American market, you'd think that Alfa would work on the reliability. If you did think that, you're oh so very wrong. I guess being unreliable is just an Italian automobile trait because the Giulia, despite the heaps of praise from automotive press, just keeps falling apart. Reports of car after car after car going into dealers for warranty repairs, automotive press having cars simply stop running during testing, all were bringing back bad memories of the Alfa of old. The most notable breakdown occurred when an automotive magazine, I forget which one, was testing the high performance Giulia Quadrifoglio against the BMW M3 and Mercedes C63 AMG. Early into the track test, the Giulia just straight up stopped working and went into limp mode. If I remember correctly, Alfa sent a replacement car and even the replacement gave up at some point. The BMW and Mercedes performed all the tests flawlessly.

As I said in my review of the Giulia, I love the way the car performs and looks, and if money were no object, I'd get a Giulia. The problem though is that I'd much rather have a car that I can actually drive instead of one that will spend most of its life sitting in a dealer service bay waiting to have warranty repairs performed. 

#2 - Acura TL Type-S

We're definitely a bit Honda biased here, and I recognize it. So you thought a Honda or Acura would be in first place, right? Well you thought wrong! But that's not to see the third generation Acura TL Type-S is bad. Oh no, in fact, it's a fantastic car. Just that something else was a little bit more fantastic.

In 2008, both East Brother and I actually had TL Type-S'. His was a silver one with the six-speed manual, and mine was a white one with the five-speed auto. The third gen TL Type-S was an absolute fantastic looking car, was extremely quick, and handled like a dream, all despite being front-wheel drive. 286 horsepower (though rumor had it that it was probably closer to 300) from a 3.5 liter V6 being routed solely to the front wheels would usually spell trouble. Yet some how, the TL Type-S could keep up with the best in its class. I remember from an old Road & Track article comparing the TL Type-S against the Lexus IS350 and Infiniti G35S, the TL wasn't the fastest on paper, but actually beat both the Lexus and the Infiniti on track. Even the Drift King himself, Keiichi Tsuchiya, test drove the TL as was incredibly impressed.

In short, the third gen TL Type-S is an absolute amazing car. If I could find one with a six-speed manual today, I'd probably try and buy it. There is, however, one sport sedan that left a bigger impression on me...

#1 - Volvo S60 T6 R-Design

...and yes, it's a Volvo. Back in 2016, East Brother and I attended an event held by the Rusnak Auto Group that featured performance cars from all of the luxury brands in its dealer group. In the sport sedan segment, there was one car that not a lot of people touched, purely because of its badge. In a group with other makes like BMW, Maserati, and Porsche, most non-enthusiasts probably wouldn't even bat an eyelash at the Volvo. Boy were these people missing out. In the sport sedan group, the S60 T6 R-Design was easily the best handling, the best looking, and the quickest of the group. Around the short test track setup by the event organizers, the Volvo hauled ass. Its 3.0 liter turbocharged inline-six didn't make the most power, but its AWD system definitely utilized its power the best. To this day, I still remember how big the grin on my face was after getting out of that car.

The funny thing is, I still want a Volvo. I've always been a big fan of the V60 Polestar, and despite lacking a manual transmission, would still love to get my hands on one. There's just something about having a fast wagon that could blow the doors off of a lot of sports cars that really gets me going.

And these are my Top 5 Sport Sedans of all time. My brother may have a different list of his own, so don't take this list as our joint opinion. Let me know what your top five sport sedans of all time are in the comments below!

Long-Term Test Drive: 2019 Infiniti QX50 Essential

Let me start off by saying that this post is long overdue. We've had this particular vehicle for almost two years now, but here I am just getting to it now. Better late than never?

I also want to preface this post by saying that I genuinely dislike CUVs with a passion. Why? It's simple:

1. The average driver does not actually need the extra height of a CUV. Unless you plan on taking it off road at some point, which the average CUV driver never will, YOU DON'T NEED THE EXTRA HEIGHT!
2. The extra height actually makes the car less efficient and more prone to flipping over
3. If you claim you want the extra cargo space, get a wagon or hatchback, which are infinitely cooler than these stupid things
4. The price premium CUVs carry over their sedan, wagon, and hatchback counterparts is often ridiculous considering the loss of efficiency.

But enough about my own personal biases towards these rolling wastes of space. What do I think about this particular vehicle here? Let me start with what I actually do like about the QX50. I find it to be one of the best looking vehicles in its class. Infiniti, despite all their current shortcomings, can still design a good looking car. The lines of the car all flow nicely into each other, and create a very cohesive and classy look. Of note is the high center line, that starts at the hood and actually flows all the way to the back of the car. Another nice design feature is the kink on the rear three-quarter panel. This design element fits nicely with the rear hatch design, and creates a visual cue that isn't disjointed like a lot of other CUVs out there. Lastly, the QX50 is one of the few Infiniti vehicles that actually pulls off that bull shark looking front end well. Considering this was a new vehicle design, it gave the designers and opportunity to design the car around the new corporate front end instead of tacking it on, thankfully.

Unfortunately, the way the car looks is really its only redeeming feature. Everything else is subpar, at best. Let's start with the biggest glaring flaw of the QX50: its packaging. This isn't just an issue with the QX50, but with the general Infiniti line up all together. Looking specifically at the QX50 though, it's a pretty glaring issue. Our particular QX50, the QX50 Essential, is the highest trim package available. Yet, despite it being the highest trim package with a starting MSRP of $45,500 in 2019, it is missing A LOT of features that its competition has as standard features. In fact, many of the missing features of the QX50 Essential come as standard equipment on lesser, non-luxury cars as well. Despite its price tag, the QX50 does not have as standard equipment: heated seats, memory seats, Android Auto/Apple CarPlay (which was remedied in the 2020 model year, thankfully), full driver assist package (the car does have radar cruise but no lane keep assist), LED headlights with adaptive lighting, wood trim. In order to add these items, you have to add a bunch of packages to the car, which can easily bring the MSRP beyond $50,000. Just as an example of how absurd the QX50's lack of equipment is, our 2016 Honda Accord Touring, which had an MSRP of about $35,500 at the time, has all of the missing bits from the QX50 as STANDARD equipment. To add insult to injury, my current 2020 Honda Civic Si has most of the same features as our old Accord (no memory seats or wood trim) at an MSRP of $25,000.

But enough about the QX50's lack of equipment. How does it drive? I will say that the 2.0 liter turbocharged inline-4 is actually quite good. It definitely provides some good mid-range power and the turbo lag is thankfully not very noticeable. At 268 horsepower, it puts it around mid-pack for power in class. Unfortunately, it's strapped to Nissan's godawful CVT. I've experienced Nissan's CVT in various applications in the past, and while the CVT in the QX50 is admittedly one of its better iterations, it still sucks. In the car's eco and normal driving modes, the CVT feels lazy and slow. In sport mode, the CVT can't seem to figure out where it wants to be, making manual shifting a necessity just to get the darn thing to work normally. It's not that Infiniti doesn't have a regular torque converter automatic to use, it's that Nissan is absolutely infatuated with CVTs for whatever stupid reason. Oh yeah, and whoever worked on the intake and exhaust sound engineering for this car? What the hell were you thinking? The engine sounds like straight up garbage. To this, I say to you:

The handling of the QX50 is pretty much what most people would expect of any CUV in this class: just very "meh." Because of the added ride height, the car rolls quite a bit during cornering and can feel quite nervous when needing to execute quicker maneuvering. The biggest problem though is the vehicle's lack of adaptive dampers, which is now becoming standard equipment on CUVs of the same class (hell, my Civic Si has adaptive dampers). Some adaptive dampers would go a long way to making the car more sporty when the driver wants it, while maintaining the car's ride comfort when the sporty handling isn't needed.

Lastly, there's the problem of the interior. It's certainly not bad, but boy is there a ton of plastic for a $45,000 car. It would be forgivable if said plastic was of the soft touch variety, but it's not. A lot of the surfaces that are commonly touched are of the rough, hard, hollow sounding variety. Even if you got the package that includes wood trim, I'm not positive it would really class up the interior much. There's also the issue of that dual touch-screen infotainment system. My family has owned quite a number of Hondas and Acuras with their iteration of the dual screen system. They've all sucked, as far as I'm concerned. Infiniti's version sucks just as bad. It's slow, the graphics are outdated, and it's hugely distracting. Why anyone still thinks this is a great idea is beyond me.

OK, so I've shit on the QX50 quite a bit, and we still have the car for another year or so. In analyzing the QX50 though, I've come to the conclusion that Infiniti is not long for this world. Many of the company's decisions have been moronic at best when it comes to vehicle packaging and which models to keep. With former Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn out of the picture, is there a chance Infiniti could recover? I'm not so optimistic. In fact, car blogger/reviewer Doug DeMuro recently put out a video on his More Doug DeMuro channel about how Infiniti is pretty much done for, and I more or less agree with it. Check it out for yourself below:

But as I've mentioned above, we still have the QX50 for another year. Even though it's not the most interesting vehicle, we will continue to post about it until we have to hand the keys back over to Infiniti. I'm just hoping in that time we'll find some sort of redeeming quality about the car that we missed the first time around.   

East-West Brother's Garage Update

It has definitely been a long time since we last posted anything. With life generally catching up to both East Brother and myself, we lost touch with this blog and let it slowly wither away. Now that most of the country is in lock down due to COVID-19, there is definitely one thing that we all have much more of these days: time. Even though the automotive industry is at more or less of a standstill, there is still lots to report on, whether it's general industry news, or our own automotive adventures (that happened before California's shelter-in-place order).

When we last left you, we reported that we had parted ways with our 2016 Honda Accord Touring long term vehicle and some new changes were coming to our long term and personal garages. Since then, our long term fleet, which was technically empty when our last post went up, has seen the addition of a 2019 Infiniti QX50. We're definitely not big fans of any sort of CUV, but the decision was really out of our hand. Reviews for this vehicle were in the works prior to our leave of absence, but both East Brother and I struggled to find much good to say about the vehicle. With life happening, the reviews were shelved, but it still might be good to share some insight on this...fairly mediocre and somewhat overpriced re-badged Nissan.

Another addition, which is actually a personal addition to my own garage, comes in the form of a 2020 Honda Civic Si Sedan. This was actually a somewhat recent addition, purchased in December of 2019. My decision behind obtaining the Civic came because my S2000, which was being daily driven again after parting with the Accord, was starting to slowly lose its value as I inched closer and closer to 100,000 miles on the odometer. Also, maintenance on the vehicle was starting to become cumbersome, especially since I started doing much of the maintenance myself. I found myself having to replace some critical parts, which became longer than anticipated projects. Rather than running the risk of encountering a project that would take me multiple days to complete and being stuck without a vehicle, I decided to get a daily driver that would be fun and reliable while allowing me to take as much time as I needed to work on the S2000.

As for East Brother, his garage has not changed since we last posted. The Chevrolet Bolt and BMW K1200S are definitely still there. Will there be any changes in the near future? If there are, I'll let him write something up.

So that leaves the final question: are we officially back? Only time will tell. I may post sporadically throughout the next couple of months as time allows, but who knows? With the extreme uncertainty in our world right now, it's hard to say what's going to happen next...

Editorial: 2016 Detroit Auto Show illustrates the future direction of American motoring

Before it happened, this year's Detroit Auto Show was thought of by many as a real dud. Many of the usual auto journo channels had largely written the show off due to a lack of major announcements and those few announcements that were anticipated were vehicles that nobody thought would actually catch anyone's attention. Yet, this year's Detroit Auto Show ended up revealing a surprising amount of technology that seems to foreshadow the future direction of the automobile in America. There were a few alternative fuel vehicle announcements, a few autonomous vehicle reveals, and a whole lot of focus on turbos and horsepower.


Key among the alternative fuel vehicle reveals was the production version of the Chevy Bolt, the first expected electric vehicle with a 200-mile range, the Bolt is a 180-degree turnaround from the company that killed off the first commercially viable EV that it itself produced. Using battery technology from LG Chem, the 60-kWh battery pack fills the floor and works in conjunction with a set of electric motors to deliver solid performance in a passenger friendly package. It is unfortunate that Chevy has chosen to design the vehicle as a tall CUV style small car. The proportions are almost Seuss-ian in nature, appearing somewhat comically tall with a shortish wheel-base and wheels that look too tiny for the height. The design is trying too hard to hide its odd proportions by using tapering side windows and lots of surfacing and character lines along its flanks. Many may see the appeal of a tallish small car, but as an EV, the increased frontal area is a serious sacrifice of aerodynamics.

Events: 2015 Los Angeles Auto Show

Thanksgiving guarantees two things each year to us here at EWBG: eating way too much and a trip to the Los Angeles Auto Show. Over the last few years, the LA Auto Show has started to become one of the large auto shows that people actually pay attention to with manufacturers revealing new concept models and production ready cars in one of the largest automotive markets in the US. With each year, the number of new reveals increased along with the popularity of the test drives that manufacturers offer to attendees. With each successive year, more and more manufacturers set up tents and booths outside the LA Convention Center to allow show goers a chance to sample their latest wares. Let us take a look at some of the cars that we saw at the show this year, as well as some of the cars we test drove.

Innovation: Hacking cars

Image courtesy of Forbes.com

Innovation is a funny thing. Often times, it has a lot of great potential to do amazing things and drive progress, but there can be unintended side effects. With cars, as computers have become increasingly integrated into ever increasingly more aspects of the average car's functions, it was only a matter of time before someone discovered that you can tap into the car's computers and start to take over some of the functions. Much of this had been restricted in the past because there was no easy way to connect to a car driving along the road, but as manufacturers have started to add wireless and cellular connections to their vehicles to take advantage of the wealth of information on the Internet, they have also inadvertently exposed those cars to hacking from the outside.

But hacking, as a term, gets a bad reputation. Sure initially hackers were considered evil, building malicious code to gain access to protected resources or breaking through barriers to gain access to private data, but in recent years, hacking has also come to signify taking a very stock item and finding a unique way to use it or to personalize it to your own needs. With cars, we have been hacking ECUs for decades now. Many aftermarket companies have developed ways to hack the programming on the ECU of a fuel injected car to adjust everything from the fuel map to ignition timing to variable valve timing transition point and using all of those things to compensate for modifications that have been applied to the car to optimize the performance. This kind of hacking has been a boon to performance cars and has allowed the addition of massive power to virtually any car through the application of forced induction.

Test Drive: 2014 Infiniti Q50 AWD

The Infiniti line-up has always been sporty and is oft considered the Japanese equivalent of BMW, offering performance oriented cars with a touch of luxury. It's volume seller of the last decade, the G sedans and coupes, were among some of the best driving cars among the Japanese luxury brands. In fact, I nearly bought a G35 and a G37 when each car came out, the only thing holding me back being the slightly sub-standard interior materials and the poorly executed manual transmission shifter and clutch. However, if you were looking at the cars with automatic transmissions, they really were fantastic cars to drive. However, to replace the G37, Infiniti has developed not only a whole new car, but has also adopted a whole new naming scheme. What was once the G37 is now the much more non-sensical Q50. However, a lot more than the name was lost in this transition. The new Q50 may be a step up from the G37 in terms interior quality, but seems to have sacrificed some of its sporting character at the altar of luxury.